Friday 5/17

Final Portfolio Due!!!

This article describes an unannounced visit from Obama to Afghanistan and what happened there. According to the article, Obama spoke to American troops and basically told them that America was depending on them, and that if it wasn't necessary for them to be there, Obama would have pulled them out. Obama also met with Karzai in order to strengthen the American-Afghan relationship. Karzai publicly thanked American troops and American people for helping rebuild Afghanistan. Obama said that he wanted to keep up the appearance of having a very strong relationship with Afghanistan.
I think this article portrays Obama as having a Liberal foreign policy approach. Obama said that "[action in Afghanistan] makes America safer...that is what is going to be required in order to ensure that our families back home have the security that they need." He is saying that our security in our homeland is dependent on international affairs, which is a Liberal view. I think that to a certain extent this Liberal view makes sense, but I'm not sure how I feel about it in this case. In general, I would support this reasoning to keep our troops in a country, but I'm beginning to think that we're not getting anywhere this time by continuing to fight.

This article describes the agreement between the US and Russia regarding arms control. It says that this agreement is the "most comprehensive" in two decades and that it is an important one. The agreement includes limits on weapons as well as verification, which arranges for inspection and data gathering to more or less make sure the countries are following the rules. Obama has said that the main goal of the agreement is to "reset the relationship with Russia" and that it is meant to show other countries that the U.S. "intends to lead".
I think this falls under the category of Liberalism because of the initiative taken. While the agreement was of course intended to keep us safe in our homeland (which might also be Realist), it is important to note that this was a large step and definitely a pro-active decision. Initiative was taken to cooperate with other countries and rebuild relationships with them, resulting in long term peace and security. This long-term view and international cooperation is more Liberal because we are not just staying in our homeland, we are branching out and actively trying to change our international relations.

This article is about a protester in Iran who has been participating in riots against the government, but who insists he is not a radical or against Islam.
The part of this article that I connected to imperialism and decolonization is when the protester said, "We are -- like it or not -- (becoming) ... a multicultural and multireligious country." This reminded me of many of the countries that were drawn up with borders that divide and pair together ethnic groups in situations that favored the parent countries and not the ex-colonies. I think it's important that more people understand what this man is saying, and learn to live with people who may share different religions and cultures. Although it would have been easier had imperialist countries drawn better borders, at this point, it is necessary to learn to live peacefully with other cultures and groups.

This article talks about a handful of churches that have been firebombed in Malaysia for making the term "Allah" synonymous with "God". The churches are Christian, a minority religion in Malaysia that is often persecuted.

The article says that some of the government leaders condemn the vandalism, but others admit that the church's use of the terms might confuse people, and ultimately say that the vandalism was somewhat justified. This is related to attribution bias, because they are saying the firebombers were forced to vandalize the churches by the churchs' own wrongs. To further this, what do you think the Christian churches attribute the bombing to? How do you feel about this issue? Does Foxnews offer any bias, or was the article fairly objective? Give a little more analysis.